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Interesting connection between this institute and bbi08. Lakoff's point was that all understanding is metaphorical, ie is a story, an interpretation based on observations (for Lakoff, the observations were primary bodily sensations). Another way to say this is that all understanding is constructed from some set of starting points, and so is challengeable as a construction.

But the observations/primary stories are themselves constructions, and so also challengeable (see observations/stories/interpretations and following). What is an observation/primary story for one person may not be for another. To the list of "my knee hurts", we might add "this tastes like wine" and now oxygen and hydrogen (as in the metaphor "water is oxygen and hydrogen"). Asking what kind of pain, or having a wine expert probe for subtler tastes makes possible different "observatons/primary stories". And oxygen and hydrogen may be the concrete ("vehicle" and water the abstract ("tenor") for a chemist but not for a beginning chemistry student.

All of this doesn't in any way affect the main points, that all understanding is metaphor/story and should be understood as such (no, we can't "be careful about using metaphors"; we have no alternative to using them and so need to make their strengths and limitations clear), that all understanding is challengeable, and that communicating understanding needs to be understood as encouraging challenge.

It does though raise some very intriguing new issues. Among them is the rationale for distinguishing, in any given case, betweenbobservation and interpretation (see observations and interpretations and following). And the basis for doing so (Joyce's suggestion that observations are what we commonly agree on). And the question of how the brain switches from one set of primary observations to another.